Locked in an Asylum,Unaware He Just Awakened a Ruthless Mafia Heiress

Chapter 3 The Race Against Time

The world outside the clinic was a blur of neon and speed. Marcello’s black sedan cut through the city traffic like a shark through a school of fish, two other identical vehicles flanking us in a silent, menacing formation. The stimulant my brother had given me was a fire in my veins, burning away the last vestiges of the sedative and leaving behind a raw, jagged-edged clarity. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic war drum counting down the seconds of my son’s life.

“The transport is a white, unmarked Ford Transit, license plate Kilo-Niner-Bravo-Six-Two-Echo,” Marcello said, his voice a low, steady anchor in my storm. He was studying a tablet displaying a live GPS map. A red dot representing the van was moving steadily north on the interstate. “My men have eyes on it. They’re ten minutes ahead of their projected route. Thorne must have pushed them to move faster.”

“She knows we’re coming,” I said, my hands clenched into fists in my lap. The thin fabric of the tactical pants felt alien against my skin. “She felt the ring in her pocket, or she saw your men lock down the facility. She’s spooked.”

“A spooked animal is a predictable one,” Marcello replied, his gaze never leaving the screen. “She’ll run to her bolt-hole. The decommissioned outpost. We’ll intercept them before they get there.”

He tapped the screen, and a voice crackled through the car’s encrypted comms system. “Alpha team, status.”

“Target is approaching the Ashworth Bridge,” a clipped voice responded. “Traffic is moderate. We are maintaining visual.”

“Box them in after the bridge,” Marcello commanded. “Use a three-car pincer. Disable the vehicle, non-lethal force on the driver. Secure the asset. I want my nephew untouched.”

“Copy, Don Vettori.”

The title, so foreign in the life I had built with Caspian, now felt like the only real thing in the world. This was who I was. Not Mrs. Evangeline Thorne, the delicate socialite who chaired charity galas. I was Evangeline Vettori, and my son had been stolen.

As we rocketed onto the interstate on-ramp, my phone—a secure satellite model Marcello had handed me—buzzed. An incoming call. An unknown number.

Marcello glanced at me. “It could be a trap.”

“It’s him,” I said, a cold certainty settling in my gut. I answered, putting it on speaker.

“Lina? My God, Lina, are you alright?” Caspian’s voice was a ragged mess of panic and confusion. “I got a call from the clinic’s security. They said you were taken. kidn*pped. Who are these people? Where are you? I’m on my way, I’m calling the police, the FBI—”

“Don’t,” I said. My voice was flat, devoid of the emotion he expected. It was the voice of a surgeon before an incision.

There was a pause. “What do you mean, ‘don’t’? Lina, you’re not well. You were taken by force. You need help.”

“The only person who needs help is our son, Caspian,” I said, each word a carefully shaped shard of ice. “And you are the one who handed him over to his executioner.”

“What are you talking about?” he cried, his voice rising in frustration. “Diana is trying to protect him! She said you had a psychotic break, that you were a danger to yourself and to him! She moved him to a secure location to keep him safe from… from whoever these people are you’re with!”

The blindness of it was staggering. The sheer, unshakeable faith he had in her lies. A month ago, it would have shattered my heart. Now, it just fueled the cold fire inside me.

“You’re a fool, Caspian,” I said softly.

“We’re approaching the bridge, Lina,” Marcello interjected, his eyes on the road ahead.

Suddenly, the traffic in front of us began to slow, then crawl, then stop. A sea of red taillights blinked in the darkness. Up ahead, flashing blue and red lights painted the night sky. Not Marcello’s men. This was official.

“What is this?” Marcello muttered, speaking into his wrist comm. “Bravo team, report. What’s the hold-up?”

“It’s a police roadblock, sir. State troopers. They’re checking every vehicle.”

“Damn it,” Marcello hissed.

On the phone, Caspian’s voice turned pleading. “I did it, Lina. I called them. I told them my wife had been abducted by an armed group in black sedans. They’re looking for you. For your own safety. Please, just surrender to the police. Let them help you.”

He hadn’t just believed Diana. He was actively using his family’s influence—the Thorne name that opened every door in this state—to stop me. To trap me. To help her.

The rage that surged through me was so pure, so absolute, it was almost silent. I ended the call without another word.

“He’s blocking our path,” I told Marcello.

“He’s not just blocking it. He’s alerting Thorne,” my brother corrected me, his expression grim. “The moment she sees that roadblock, she’ll know we’re closing in. She’ll reroute. We’ll lose her.”

“Then we go around.” I looked to the side of the interstate. A steep, grassy embankment led down to a service road running parallel to the highway. It was a risky, almost vertical drop.

Marcello looked at me, then at the embankment. A slow, dangerous smile touched his lips. It was a smile I remembered from our childhood, the one that always preceded a broken rule and a thrilling escape. “Hold on,” he said.

He spoke a rapid command in Italian into his comms. The driver wrenched the wheel. With a gut-lurching heave, the sedan swerved onto the shoulder, crashed through a flimsy guardrail, and plunged down the embankment. For a terrifying moment, we were airborne. We hit the service road with a bone-jarring impact that threw me against the door. The other two cars followed suit, a perfectly executed, insane maneuver. We were back on the move, speeding past the gridlocked traffic above.

Ten minutes later, we saw it. Pulled over on the shoulder of the deserted service road, just beneath the shadow of the Ashworth Bridge, was the white Ford Transit. Its side door was slid open, gaping like a wound. It was empty.

My men were there first, their own vehicles angled around the van, weapons drawn. They moved with a chilling efficiency, clearing the interior, checking the undercarriage, scanning the surrounding woods.

“No driver. No passenger. The engine is still warm,” the Alpha team leader reported as Marcello and I got out of the car.

I ran to the back of the van, my heart a cold, heavy stone in my chest. The interior was bare except for a small, overturned gurney and a scattering of medical supplies. A discarded juice box. A child’s blue sneaker. Leo’s. I picked it up, my fingers tracing the worn rubber sole. He was here. He was right here.

A wave of despair so powerful it buckled my knees washed over me. We were too late. She had moved him.

“She had a secondary vehicle waiting,” Marcello deduced, scanning the muddy shoulder. “She anticipated the roadblock and had a contingency. Smart.”

“Not smart enough,” I whispered, my eyes scanning the mess inside the van. My training, the years I’d spent in medical school before I’d met Caspian, kicked in. I saw past the chaos to the details. A biohazard bag, torn open, its contents spilled across the floor. Syringe wrappers, used gauze, empty saline bags. Standard medical waste.

But there was something else. Tucked beneath a pile of soiled linens was a clipboard. I snatched it up. It was a manifest, a transfer log from ‘Bio-Waste Solutions Unlimited.’ A list of items for disposal.

“What is it?” Marcello asked, coming to stand beside me.

“It’s a ghost ledger,” I said, my finger tracing the columns. It looked like a simple inventory list. Item codes, weights, disposal protocols. But it wasn’t. Diana had been sloppy. Arrogant. She thought no one would ever see this, and if they did, they wouldn’t understand it.

“This code,” I pointed to a long alphanumeric string. “It’s not for medical waste. It’s a patient identifier format used in high-security genomic research. And this… ‘Compound 734-Alpha’. That’s not a designation for a disinfectant. It’s an internal project name from a pharmaceutical company my father’s corporation acquired five years ago. They were developing a cell-stabilizing agent for organ transplants, but the project was shut down. The side effects were catastrophic.”

My blood ran cold. “What side effects?” Marcello asked.

I looked at him, the full horror of Diana’s plan crashing down on me.

“In primate trials, the compound caused a hyper-accelerated immune response. The host body would be perfectly preserved, but the heart… the heart would be attacked by its own system. It induced acute, irreversible cardiomyopathy. Heart failure.”

I flipped the page. There, at the bottom, in small, precise print, was a note.

*‘Specimen transfer complete. Initiate Phase Two protocol. Note: Post-administration metabolic cascade estimated at 48 hours. Primary agent must be neutralized with gene-specific counter-agent prior to H-48 to prevent total cardiac collapse.’*

Forty-eight hours.

From the moment she injected him.

My son didn’t just have a timer on his k********g. He had a timer on his life. Diana hadn’t just taken him; she had turned him into a walking time bomb. And the only person on earth who had the data for the antidote, the one thing that could stop his heart from tearing itself apart, was her.